Rowley: No maintenance on NHA units for 15 years

He was piloting the National Development Corporation (NDC) Bill in the Senate.

Rowley stated that there had not been significant maintenance of NHA units for almost 15 years because maintenance had not been a priority. "Because of the funding arrangement for the NHA where its revenues go into the Consolidated Fund and then they have to wait for dribbles to come back to them in the national budget the maintenance is not done," he said.

He added, "People live in these units and for a dollar or two; the toilets do not work, electrical maintenance is not done, physical maintenance is not done and windows are not repaired because the agency does not get the revenue stream."

"Those who do the national budget at the Ministry of Finance, they do not see maintenance at the NHA as a priority," he said.

Rowley stated that the Bill, which would replace the NHA with the NDC, would enable the NHA to hire its own staff. Saying that one of the basic problems was that responsibility lay with the Statutory Authorities Service Commission (SASC), Rowley said, "It is not surprising that you can be at the NHA and someone turns up to be interviewed for a job, because they have been sent by the Service Commission unbeknown to you." He said it meant that you could train someone in developing skills such as IT skills and as soon as the person has finished his/her training, they disappear because they have been transferred "to some other boon-dock somewhere under the umbrella of the SASC."

Saying that everyone at NHA were actors, Rowley said the present arrangement limited the hiring of staff. He said under the SASC "ranges and fixtures" one couldn’t hire an engineer for $6,000. "The minimum you could get an engineer for, hot out of school, is $12,000...Of course, if you keep the present arrangement in place you can put somebody to act as an engineer and that person gets the $6,000 as an improvement," he said.